Purse , livre ebook

The Floating Press - De Balzac Honore ,
traduit par Clara Bell

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26 pages

English

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"The Purse" is a short story that makes up part of Honore de Balzac's epic cycle The Human Comedy. Daydreaming while working on a ladder, the painter Hippolyte Schinner accidentally falls and sustains an injury. Two neighbors -- a mother and daughter -- come to his aid, and he falls in love at first sight with the beautiful young woman, Adelaide. But over time, he begins to notice that the veneer of aristocratic gentility that the two project is not what it appears.

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 juillet 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781776539116
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0064€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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THE PURSE
* * *
HONORE DE BALZAC
Translated by
CLARA BELL

*
The Purse First published in 1832 Epub ISBN 978-1-77653-911-6 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77653-912-3 © 2014 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
*
The Purse Addendum
*
To Sofka
"Have you observed, mademoiselle, that the painters and sculptors of the Middle Ages, when they placed two figures in adoration, one on each side of a fair Saint, never failed to give them a family likeness? When you here see your name among those that are dear to me, and under whose auspices I place my works, remember that touching harmony, and you will see in this not so much an act of homage as an expression of the brotherly affection of your devoted servant,
"DE BALZAC."
The Purse
*
For souls to whom effusiveness is easy there is a delicious hour thatfalls when it is not yet night, but is no longer day; the twilightgleam throws softened lights or tricksy reflections on every object, andfavors a dreamy mood which vaguely weds itself to the play of lightand shade. The silence which generally prevails at that time makes itparticularly dear to artists, who grow contemplative, stand a fewpaces back from the pictures on which they can no longer work, and passjudgement on them, rapt by the subject whose most recondite meaning thenflashes on the inner eye of genius. He who has never stood pensive by afriend's side in such an hour of poetic dreaming can hardly understandits inexpressible soothingness. Favored by the clear-obscure, thematerial skill employed by art to produce illusion entirely disappears.If the work is a picture, the figures represented seem to speak andwalk; the shade is shadow, the light is day; the flesh lives, eyesmove, blood flows in their veins, and stuffs have a changing sheen.Imagination helps the realism of every detail, and only sees thebeauties of the work. At that hour illusion reigns despotically; perhapsit wakes at nightfall! Is not illusion a sort of night to the mind,which we people with dreams? Illusion then unfolds its wings, it bearsthe soul aloft to the world of fancies, a world full of voluptuousimaginings, where the artist forgets the real world, yesterday and themorrow, the future—everything down to its miseries, the good and theevil alike.
At this magic hour a young painter, a man of talent, who saw in artnothing but Art itself, was perched on a step-ladder which helped him towork at a large high painting, now nearly finished. Criticising himself,honestly admiring himself, floating on the current of his thoughts,he then lost himself in one of those meditative moods which ravish andelevate the soul, soothe it, and comfort it. His reverie had no doubtlasted a long time. Night fell. Whether he meant to come down from hisperch, or whether he made some ill-judged movement, believing himself tobe on the floor—the event did not allow of his remembering exactly thecause of his accident—he fell, his head struck a footstool, he lostconsciousness and lay motionless during a space of time of which he knewnot the length.
A sweet voice roused him from the stunned condition into which he hadsunk. When he opened his eyes the flash of a bright light made him closethem again immediately; but through the mist that veiled his senses heheard the whispering of two women, and felt two young, two timid handson which his head was resting. He soon recovered consciousness, and bythe light of an old-fashioned Argand lamp he could make out the mostcharming girl's face he had ever seen, one of those heads which areoften supposed to be a freak of the brush, but which to him suddenlyrealized the theories of the ideal beauty which every artist createsfor himself and whence his art proceeds. The features of the unknownbelonged, so to say, to the refined and delicate type of Prudhon'sschool, but had also the poetic sentiment which Girodet gave to theinventions of his phantasy. The freshness of the temples, the regulararch of the eyebrows, the purity of outline, the virginal innocence soplainly stamped on every feature of her countenance, made the girl aperfect creature. Her figure was slight and graceful, and frail in form.Her dress, though simple and neat, revealed neither wealth nor penury.
As he recovered his senses, the painter gave expression to hisadmiration by a look of surprise, and stammered some confused thanks.He found a handkerchief pressed to his forehead, and above the smellpeculiar to a studio, he recognized the strong odor of ether, applied nodoubt to revive him from his fainting fit. Finally he saw an old woman,looking like a marquise of the old school, who held the lamp and wasadvising the young girl.
"Monsieur," said the younger woman in reply to one of the questionsput by the painter during the few minutes when he was still under theinfluence of the vagueness that the shock had produced in his ideas, "mymother and I heard the noise of your fall on the floor, and we fanciedwe heard a groan. The silence following on the crash alarmed us, and wehurried up. Finding the key in the latch, we happily took the libertyof entering, and we found you lying motionless on the ground. My motherwent to fetch what was needed to bathe your head and revive you. Youhave cut your forehead—there. Do you feel it?"
"Yes, I do now," he replied.
"Oh, it will be nothing," said the old mother. "Happily your head restedagainst this lay-figure."
"I feel infinitely better," replied the painter. "I need nothing furtherbut a hackney cab to take me home. The porter's wife will go for one."
He tried to repeat his thanks to the two strangers; but at each sentencethe elder lady interrupted him, saying, "Tomorrow, monsieur, praybe careful to put on leeches, or to be bled, and drink a few cups ofsomething healing. A fall may be dangerous."
The young girl stole a look at the painter and at the pictures in thestudio. Her expression and her glances revealed perfect propriety; hercuriosity seemed rather absence of mind, and her eyes seemed to speakthe interest which women feel, with the most engaging spontaneity, ineverything which causes us suffering. The two strangers seemed to forgetthe painter's works in the painter's mishap. When he had reassured themas to his condition they left, looking at him with an anxiety that wasequally free from insistence and from familiarity, without asking anyindiscreet questions, or trying to incite him to any wish to visit them.

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